Guess we'll see who's boss now -- the universities or the football teams.

In a letter to students Thursday, University of Washington president Ana Mari Cauce wrote that more than 90 percent of classes will be online this fall. The decision was not a surprise, and it follows a similar decision July 23 announced by Washington State.

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The NCAA's worst nightmare is becoming a reality: An organized revolt by football players at big-time schools to end the long-established collective exploitation of  athletes.

The argument could be made that the revolt couldn't have been more poorly timed, when a pandemic threatens to wipe out a season of the cash cow of football. The response: The NCAA has had 114 years to reform itself, encouraged by many inside and outside to do so. It whiffed.

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The Pac-12 Conference produced Friday its best shot at a 2020 football schedule, virtually daring the coronavirus to do its worst. So far in the U.S., it has done that very well.

Unless some drastic changes occur in federal leadership and public behavior, it won't be played. But, like a miracle, maybe COVID-19 will disappear.

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Jen Cohen is about as earnest, enthusiastic and successful an athletics director as there is in the ruthless world of big-time college sports. As a Tacoma kid, she grew up enthralled by University of Washington sports. Since her 2016 appointment to succeed Scott Woodward as athletics director, she's been in her dream job.

So as you can imagine, the last seven months for her have been an unyielding nightmare.

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The thresher of the coronavirus continues to make hay of optimistic sports schedules. The Pac-12 Conference Friday followed the Big Ten Conference's lead and made the football schedules conference-only, meaning that Washington's September games against Sacramento State and Utah State joined Michigan on the discard pile.

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The coronavirus, always in the lead, is beginning to put distance between its relentless self and the local and national sports sensibilities.

The highlight event of the Seattle sports calendar in September, the visit of the Michigan Wolverines and coach Jim Harbaugh to Husky Stadium for a season-opening game Sept. 5 against Washington, was cancelled Thursday.

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Those darn college kids. Don't they know their near-constant desires to get drunk and laid are in the way of the entire purpose of universities, which is to stage college football?

Life is full of hard decisions, kids. You can't always get what you want, wrote Mick Jagger wrote a couple of generations ago. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

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This month the NCAA is distributing about $225 million to member schools. Cool -- until it is realized that the expected payout was $600 million. The difference is due largely to the cancellation of the men's basketball tournament because of the coronavirus and all the clean protocol in the stadium, you can click here for read the new protocols.

Now you know why the University of Washington athletics department gave itself a 15 percent haircut Friday.

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Now we know what new Huskies football coach Jimmy Lake thought about the quarterback crew he inherited from Chris Petersen:

Help!

Kevin Thomson, a lightly recruited QB in 2014 -- yes, 2014 -- from Auburn Riverside High School who became the Big Sky Conference offensive player of the year at Sacramento State, is transferring as a graduate and will be immediately eligible at Washington, his third school in seven years.

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Huskies football coach Jimmy Lake enters the home of prized California high school five-star recruit Latissimus Dorsey.

Dorsey: Whatcha got for me, coach?

Lake: Serious Seattle bling. We have a new football video game, MadMax 2022, from Nintendo, which wants your exclusive endorsement. We have a paid internship from Microsoft in their G5 Deathstar program that won't require work except for you hosting its YouTube channel in the summer. And finally, we have an unlimited account for you at Seattle's most unaccountably downscale hipster joint, Dick's. Package's first-year value: $150,000.

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Only 42, new University of Washington football coach Jimmy Lake doesn't have a lot of room to talk about "back in the old days."

Nevertheless, during an update teleconference call this week with area reporters, he did. And said something perhaps unintentionally prophetic.

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A campus statue isn't likely to be part of Jim Lambright's football legacy at the University of Washington. Which doesn't mean he won't tower in the minds of players he coached for 24 years as a Huskies assistant coach and six years as head coach.

Besides, any statue won't be as stout as Lambo. Nor as purple.

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Given the resources and intensity the NFL brings to its annual scouting combine in Indianapolis, it is remarkable how many whiffs occur in the draft. But hey, that's the beauty of we humans -- much as we seek order, calm and predictability, sometimes the chosen people don't do the voodoo like you want them to.

Which brings us to Jacob Eason.

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During his eight-year tenure as Washington State's football coach, I never figured out Mike Leach. I don't feel too bad, since I don't think anyone else figured him out, either.

There's no denying his football success: A 36-36 conference record in Pullman is nearly like Danny DeVito leading the NBA in rebounding.

There's also no denying his eccentrism tended to exasperate and enervate.

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The first official act of Jimmy Lake as University of Washington head football coach was to fire two offensive assistants that he worked alongside Saturday at the Las Vegas Bowl, coordinator Bush Hamdan and tight ends coach Jordan Paopao, the Huskies announced in a statement Sunday afternoon.

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LAS VEGAS -- The Washington football team sure knows how to throw a farewell party. It was one thoughtful gift after another in Chris Petersen's final hour.

On a cool night in the Nevada desert, the Huskies presented their departing coach with an aggressive defense. They handed him an equally efficient offense. Everything came in a big box with a bow on top.

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The instant the matchup was revealed, the game was called the Chris Petersen Bowl. But that's not even the half of it. The less-than-epic Las Vegas Bowl Saturday (4:30 p.m., ABC) between the Washington Huskies and the Boise State Broncos should be called the Awkward Bowl.

You know, like when you're in the neighbor's tool shed, and he comes in and asks why you didn't seek permission. You would, um, rather be somewhere else.

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Given the facts that the Washington Huskies went 7-5 and are playing Saturday with a two-headed coach in a minor bowl, there's an argument that Wednesday's letter-of-intent day might have been their best day of 2019.

As opaque and mysterious is each class at every school, none of UW's 23 verbal commits bailed after the news that Chris Petersen was stepping down and Jimmy Lake was stepping up.

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The Washington Huskies placed five players on the Pac-12's All-Conference first team, four on the second team and three earned honorable mention, the league announced Tuesday. The five first-teamers tied Arizona State for second-most, and trailed league champion Utah, which had eight.

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The 7-5 Washington Huskies will play 12-1 Boise State, coach-in-exit Chris Petersen's former team, in the Las Vegas Bowl Dec. 21, and the 6-6 Washington State Cougars will play 10-2 Air Force in the Cheez-It Bowl in Phoenix Dec. 27.

A post-season Mountain West (Conference) Fest sure to thrill several people.

Meanwhile, the Pac-12 Conference, in accord with recent tradition, will be nowhere when it comes to deciding college football's national champion.

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